Death Toll
by cherryade
Summary: Every time he takes a life, no matter the necessity, he dies a bit inside.


**A/N: I've always seen Danny as a very emotional person in the sense that he feels his emotions a lot. He doesn't just love, he **_**loves**_**. Just look at what he's willing to do for Grace.**

Danny tells Kono that the job gets easier as the years wear on but the truth is, he's lying. Danny is a peace-loving man and as much as he threatens Steve with bodily harm, he doesn't like violence. It's the iffy dark-coloured part of the job that he wishes he could wash away but he knows he can't. He knows that even Steve is affected by it. He shoots to kill and doesn't seem affected by it later, but Danny can tell by the look in his eyes that he wishes there was another way. Every death on the job, whether it be a fellow comrade or a perp eats them away, bit by bit.

On days where a perp dies by their hands, he falls into sleep with a bottle in his hand and his demons for company. On those nights, they haunt his dreams. It is always the same, generic hotel room, the kind drug-dealers and on-the-run murderers like to use because they ask no questions and accept large amounts of cash as payment. Steve kicks down the door and they barge in, gun at the ready, to face a man with his own gun pointed at the door. He fires and misses by a mile.

Then everything slows.

Danny feels the smoothness of the trigger and how easy it gives way under his finger as he presses down on it. He feels the bullet whizzing through the air and impacting on something soft yet solid just as the recoil jerks his hands. He hears the loud bang, the gunshot, in the enclosed space that leaves his ears ringing. He feels and hears that same sound over and over again as Steve, Chin, Kono and him fire and fire and fire.

He sees the stunned expression of surprise on the perp's face. He sees it change in that split second before the bullet impacts his flesh. He sees the resignation and the fear in his eyes, the moment where he knows he will not survive to see the people he loves again. He sees his body arch backwards, jerking with the impact of a few metal slugs, and fall to the carpet, blood pooling beneath him. He can smell the blood, metallic, human.

The gunshot stops, the seconds speed up and it's all over. It took years of effort to grow a man and ten seconds to kill him. Although he knows that what was done was necessary, it doesn't stop him from questioning if there might have been a better way, doesn't stop him from wondering if _selfish_ he could somehow pass the responsibility on to someone else.

He bends down and his hand hovers over the pulse point on the perp's neck. He knows he's dead but it's by the book the check and he suddenly feels like lobbing the book at the writer's head. He presses _sarin? _down and feels nothing, no flutter of a heartbeat, no sign of the life that was so evident a mere few minutes ago.

The scene changes.

He is at a funeral. It is always the same bright spring day back in Jersey, even when he moved the many miles to be with the daughter he loved. He is standing behind a tree, too ashamed to move forward, yet compelled by the need to see what was going on. Slowly, he recognises people. He sees his family, his friends and the figure of a little girl that steals his heart away. He sees his Grace, pigtails quivering as she jerked with her uncontrollable sobs, their sounds echoing across the silent cemetery. He thinks he knows who is in the coffin they've gathered to lower in the ground, but he's too scared to step forward. Every time he takes a life, no matter the necessity, he dies a bit inside.

On nights when such dreams _visions? _visit him, Danny jerks awake crying and guilt-ridden, Gracie's sobs ringing in his ears. He runs a hand down his face and wipes away the tears, cursing their existence and his weakness. He doesn't need to feel guilty, he knows, but he does anyway. How many of these criminals _people _have family, have their own little Grace who'd cry as hard as Grace would cry for him?

He climbs out of bed and heads to the bathroom where he brushes his teeth and takes a shower as hot as he can bear. He makes himself a cup of good strong coffee and gulps it down while it's still capable of burning his throat. He clips on his badge _7576_ without looking at it_ how many of the dead will just be a number? _and fits his gun and its holster securely on his hip. He grabs his car keys and strides out of the house, ready for another day of crime-solving and maybe murder.

**Thanks for reading! (:**


End file.
